Patient&#39;s room composite storage cabinet



Feb. 14, 1961 E. E. LA VlGNE 2,971,307

PATIENT'S ROOM COMPOSITE STORAGE CABINET Filed Aug. 1, 195a 7 4 -15 7. 4 Y Q Q 4 \l-js j- Z0 h 17 o QL 1; I l 8 c 1- Q /1 .24 I

FIGJ J5 FIGZ FIGS EUGENE E. LAVIGNE ATTOR N EY United States Patfif O PATIENTS ROOM COMPOSITE STORAGE- CABINET Eugene E. La Vigne, Creve Coeur, M0,, assignor, by

mesne assignments, to Brunswick Corporation, a corporation of Delaware Filed Aug. 1, 1958, Ser. No. 752,661

1 Claim. (Cl. 312-287) This invention relates in general to hospital equipment and, more particularly, to a composite storage cabinet for the personal effects of a hospital patient.

Heretofore, when a hospital patient is moved, as from one room to another, in accordance with treatment or convalescent requirements, it has been customarily a laborious and time-consuming operation to transfer the various personal belongings of such a patient. Such a removal has necessitated the services of at least one hospital attendant to empty the drawers of the usual hospital room dresser, to remove clothing hanging in the closet, and to collect the various loose articles, such as books, magazines, flowers, shoes, valises, etc. If the patients items are carried without packing, several trips back and forth between the two locations may be necessary, and if the items are packed such a procedure involves further costly efforts, and in either case the restoring of the articles at the new location causes further time expenditure. In view of the ever-increasing wage structure for hospital attendants, such patient-moving operations represent a most substantial loss of constructive services by skilled attendants.

However, with the general adoption by all large hospitals of the plan or program of progressive care, which now is approaching realization, the cost of patient removal will be a matter of most prominent concern. In this plan, patients are progressively removed from one location in a hospital to another, depending upon the type of care indicated for the particular stage of convalescence. For example, subsequent to an operation, the patient might be placed in a private room for a period of two or three days where individual nursing attention is provided. Then, the patient would be transported to another room, for a prescribed period, which room may be adequate for several patients wherein group attention would be available. Next, as the patient recovers, he could then be moved to a ward or to a section of the hospital devoted to ambulatory cases, where only limited, supervisory attention would be requisite. In such a program of patient care, substantially all patients would be moved several times during their stay in a hospital, so that moving would have to be effected quickly and economically. Consequently, the transference of a patients personal effects would correspondingly have to be accomplished in a commensurately eflicacious manner.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a composite storage cabinet for the totality of a hospital patients personal effects, which cabinet is readily transportable so that a patients belongings may be easily, quickly, and economically moved from location to location within a hospital without necessitating handling of any individual items.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a mobile, composite storage cabinet which is designed for compactly receiving and orderly maintaining all of a hospital patients belongings, thereby rendering unnecessary the provision of permanent storage compart- 2,971,807 Patented Feb. 14, 1951 ice ments, such as closets, and the like, in patient rooms in new hospital construction and the provision of the heretofore numerous conventional items of patient room furniture, such as dressers, night stands, wardrobes, etc., thus conducing to maximum economical space utilization.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a mobile composite storage cabinet for comprehensive reception of a patients personal effects, which cabinet is economically manufactured; which is of sturdy construction; and which is durable and reliable in usage.

Other objects and details of the invention will be apparent from the following description, when read in connection with the accompanying drawing (one sheet) wherein:

Figure l is a storage cabinet constructed in accordance with and embodying the present invention.

Figure 2 is a vertical transverse section taken on the line 22 of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a horizontal transverse section taken on the line 33 of Figure 1.

Figure 4 is a horizontal transverse section taken on the line 44 of Figure 1.

Figure 5 is a rear view.

Referring now by reference characters to the drawing which illustrates the preferred embodiment of the present invention, A designates a composite storage cabinet for a hospital patients personal belongings comprising a casing having a pair of vertically presented, parallel side walls 1, 1 and horizontal top and bottom walls 2, 3, respectively, and being preferably of sheet metal construction, such as of stainless steel, aluminum, or the like. The said casing is open in its back or rear portion and includes a partial front wall 5 presented transversely between the lower portions of side walls 1, 1'. A guard rail 6 of generally channel-shape stock is provided about the periphery of top wall 2 to prevent accidental displacement therefrom of articles disposed upon top wall 2, such as books, vases, instruments, toilet articles, etc. during the use of cabinet A.

Extending between, and secured along its lateral marginal portions to side walls 1, 1, inwardly of their rearward side edges thereof, is a vertical panel 7, planarwise normal to side walls 1, 1 and with its upper edge fixed to the under face of top Wall 2. The lower edge of panel 7 terminates spacedly upwardly of bottom wall 3 and is engaged throughout its extent to the rearward edge portion of a horizontal panel 8, parallel to top wall 2, and rigid at its ends with side walls 1, 1'. The forward edge of panel 8 is immediately inwardly of the front edges of side walls 1, 1. Panel 7, 8, together with the adjacent portions of side walls 1, 1' and top wall 2, define an enclosable compartment B for purposes which will now be discussed.

Engaged, as by welding or other means, to the inner faces of side walls 1, 1, within compartment B, are two sets of vertically aligned drawer-runners 9, 10, as of angle stock, and there being at the inner end of each runner a drawer stop 11 secured, as by a screw, to the proximate side wall; Provided for slideable disposition upon each pair of runners 9, 10 is an upper and lower drawer 12, 13, respectively, the front or forwardly presented sides of which are enlarged and in planar alignment with front wall 5, and being appropriately finished for blending with the exterior treatment of cabinet A. Mounted on the front sides of drawers 12, 13 are handle knobs 14.

Disposed beneath lower drawer 13 for movement inwardly and outwardly of compartment B, is a flat, table surface-forming slide 15, movably supported upon runners 16 mounted on the upper face of horizontal panel 8. The outer end face of slide 15 is aligned with the outer faces of drawers 12, 13 and front wall 5, and has mounted thereon knob-like handle elements 17. "Projecting from the rearward lateral edge portions of slide 15 are abutments 18 for engagement against detents 19 mounted at the forward ends of runners 16 for limiting the outward extension of slide 15 (see Figure 4). Slide 15 may be fabricated of any suitable rigid, hard-wearing material, such as laminated plastics, wood, metal, or the like, and when substantially withdrawn will provide a level surface for article support or for desk use.

Across the front of cabinet A between drawer 13 and slide 15 there is provided a facing strip 29 as well as a similar facing strip 21 between top wall 2 and upper drawer 12 for completing the enclosure of the front portion of compartment B. Thus, it will be seen that compartment B provides a combination desk and chest of drawers within which latter a patient may store certain articles of wearing apparel, toilet articles, etc., and which thereby eliminates the need for the customary, spaceconsuming dresser or chest of drawers heretofore considered standard equipment for all hospital rooms, but which, in actual practice, are invariably only partially utilized.

Presented immediately below compartment B is a transversely extending shelf 22 with its ends secured to the inner faces of side walls 1, 1 and which in its rear portion is integral with a short, upwardly turned wall section 23, the upper end of the latter being reinforcingly flanged and in spaced relationship to panel 8 for providing an intervening passage 24. Shelf 22 with wall section 23, the adjacent portions of side walls 1, 1' and panel 8 define a chamber C which is vented to the atmosphere through passage 24 and the open back of cabinet A; said chamber C being designed primarily for storage of a bed pan but may be utilized for any other similar hospital articles for patients use.

Provided coveringly across the front of chamber C is a flap-type closure 25, having its outer face co-planar with front wall and being hingedly mounted along its transverse bottom margin, as at 26, whereby the same may be drawn downwardly to permit access to chamber C; there being the conventional spring means (not shown) for biasing said closure 25 into normal chamber-closed relationship.

Disposed in the upper rearward portionof cabinet A is a hanger rod 27, the inner end of which is secured in panel 7 and the outer portion of which is upwardly bent to form a vertical extension 28, fixed at its upper end to a bracket 29. Said rod 27 is designed for clothing support, as by the conventional coat hangers, which latter will be prevented from accidental displacement from rod 27 as the ends of the same are closed by the adjacent portion of panel 7 and vertical extension 28. Thus, the portion of cabinet A rearwardly of compartment B defines an open closet section indicated generally as D.

The lower portion of cabinet A, determined by front wall 5, shelf 22, and bottom wall 3, comprises a relatively large compartment E readily accessible through the open back of cabinet A, beneath any clothing disposed in section D, for the storage of handbags, valises, and the like, as well as a patients shoes, and for storage of blankets or related articles of bed clothing.

Mounted on the upper portion of side wall 1, at opposite sides thereof, are aligned arms 30 to the outer ends of which are engaged the ends of a transverse push rod 31 for facilitating directed movement of cabinet A which is rendered mobile by casters 32'supported from bottom wall 3. Also provided on cabinet A, about the lower portion thereof, is a bumper 33, as of rubber, or the like, to prevent damaging contact during travel.

'In view of the foregoing, it is apparent that cabinet A is a comprehensive, self-contained unit for storage, in an orderly arrangement, of the various personal effects of a patient, and the use of which will eliminate the necessity of the heretofore standard articlesof hospital room furniture. Most importantly, the present invention will permit a ready transferability of a patients personal effects from one location in a hospital to another in a most facile and expeditious manner whereby transfer may be made by a single move without necessitating the collecting from various sources and the carrying by hospital attendants of the innumerable articles comprising a patients belongings, with the concomitant avoidance ofany efforts in re-storing the effects in new receptacles at the other location. Thus, when a patient enters a hospital a composite storage cabinet A will be assigned to the patient and will follow the patient throughout his or her removals throughout the hospital, so that at all times a patient will know exactly where his or her personal effects are stored.

Accordingly, the use of the present'invention will effect marked economies in hospital operations, entailing mini mum time loss of skilled attendants in removing patients, as well as eliminating investment in the usual patients room furniture and obviating the space loss occasioned by 'the provision of. closets in hospital rooms.

It should be understood that changes and modifications in the form, construction, arrangement, and combination of the several parts of the patients room composite storage cabinet may be made and substituted for those herein shown and described without departing from the nature and principle of the present invention.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

As an article of manufacture, a mobile composite storage cabinet comprising a casing having parallel upstanding side walls, a top wall, a bottom wall, said casing being open in its rearward side portion, a front wall member extending transversely between the lower portions of said side walls, a partition member dependingly supported from the under surface of the top wall spacedly from the forward and rearward edges of said sidewalls, said partition extending transversely between said side walls and terminating at its lower edge spacedly above the bottom wall, said partition together with the rearward side portions of said side walls and the rearward portion of said top wall defining a rearward compartment, a clothes hanger support member provided in the upper portion of said rearward compartment and being fixed at one end to said partition and extending rearwardly therefrom, drawer support means provided forwardly of said partition, drawers slideably supported on said drawer support means for movement inwardly and outwardly of the front portion 'of said casing, a flat, surface-forming member slideably disposed forwardly of said partition in vertical alignment with said drawers, a shelf extending transversely between said side walls spacedly above said bottom wall and spacedly below the lower edge of said partition, a closure for said shelf mounted on said front wall, said front wall, shelf closure, and outer faces of said drawers and surface-forming members being aligned planarwise when said cabinet is in closed condition, said shelf having a short upstanding rearward portion the upper edge of which terminates spacedly below said partition to define an opening therethrough for opening said shelf to the atmosphere through the open rearward portion of said casing, said shelf defining with the portions of the side walls therebeneath a storage area continuous with said rearward compartment.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

